Nationwide Bird Count Takes Flight This Weekend

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Don't be alarmed if you see your neighbors prowling around the
yard with binoculars this weekend, looking for impressive
breasts. Rest assured that nothing sinister is afoot.

They're probably looking for red-breasted robins. Or
white-breasted nuthatches. Or red-shouldered hawks. Just about
anything with feathers and wings.

This weekend birds, no matter their coloring or anatomical
curiosities, will be counted all over the United States and
Canada during the 14th annual Great
Backyard Bird Count, a four-day event that kicks off tomorrow
(Feb. 18).

The GBBC is a joint project of the National Audubon Society and
the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Open to people of all ages and
attention spans — you can count birds for as briefly as 15
minutes — the massive event is designed to provide a snapshot of
the
bird species present in North America.

Citizen science

The event has grown in popularity each year, and the 2010 GBBC
was a record breaker — 97,200 checklists poured in from all 50
states, and participants recorded 602 species in 11.2 million
individual bird observations.

Part of the appeal, said Bob Barnes, a passionate birder who has
led observing trips across the United States for roughly 35
years, is the fact that you don't have to be a trained scientist
to join in the fun.

"It's pretty inclusive for anybody," said Barnes, who is based
near the Kern River Valley in California. Barnes said he plans to
put in time every day of the GBBC, although he's not sure exactly
where he'll be counting birds.

"We have some rain in the forecast here, in which case I'll
literally be doing my backyard," Barnes said, chuckling, "because
then I can do it inside my house. We have floor-to-ceiling
windows in the back."

Helpful data

Whether semi-professional, self-taught, or total bird beginners,
all participants in the GBBC make valuable contributions by
sending in data, said Kevin J. McGowan, a scientist who has been
studying crows for almost 25 years.

"Anything that is an organized way to count birds is helpful to
us," McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell lab, told
OurAmazingPlanet. "In fact, all of our really good methods of
counting bird populations are done by volunteers, so they're
mostly amateurs."

McGowan, who is not professionally associated with the GBBC, said
this weekend's event will catch birds at the very end of their
southerly migrations.

The good thing about events like the GBBC and Audubon's
better-known and more regimented Christmas Bird Count is that
they get so many people involved, he said.

"They just get a whole lot more boots on the ground anywhere than
there would be otherwise," McGowan said. Plus, he added, "It's
fun."

Barnes could not agree more. Armed with binoculars and paper and
pencil, Barnes said he wouldn't think of missing the event but
he'd probably be out looking at birds, anyway.

"Maybe it's because birds can do things that we can't — they can
fly without an engine," Barnes said. "You look up and think,
'Wouldn't it be fun to go up there and fly above everything?'"